Above : This performance, devised by Sydney Philharmonia Artistic and Music Director, Brett Weymark, was conducted on the day by Elizabeth Scott. Photo credit : Keith Saunders. Featured image :  Sydney Philharmonia Choir. Photo Credit : Robert Catto.

Mozart’s Requiem has long been that compact, lush and intense dramatic landscape we love to immerse ourselves in at choral concerts. The Sydney Philharmonia Choirs have presented it many times in several formats and with sizes of choir from regular to huge massed choral events with huge impact.

Mozart’s output and prodigious genius, especially in earlier, lesser known vocal music is also a real treasure trove of musical  expression. Both the famous Requiem work and the earlier music from this composer were special ingredients in this concert event.

The concept here for a changed-up concept performance of Mozart’s loved Requiem was uniquely inventive from a performance practice point of view. It’s musicological pastiche had stunning impact.

Above:  Soprano soloist Chloe Lankshear. Image supplied.

The choir began the event with Deborah Cheetham’s  beautiful  Tarimi Nulay- Long Time Living Here, fast becoming the choir’s special signature acknowledgement of country.

Acting as tropes before, after and alongside the well-known trajectory of Mozart’s Requiem and final composition were the carefully  chosen vocal highlights from other Mozart works. These were fittingly matched to the drama from the funeral mass text surrounding them. It was a thrill to discover or to re-hear the works, often in new  arrangements by local composer Jessica Wells.

This additional music appearing to separate some  movements of the Requiem was appropriate and well performed, endearing us to them as well as a reunion with his last work. The successful arrangements of Mozart’s music by Jessica Wells included sections of the Masonic Funeral Music and the early Miserere Mei Op 90, appearing  even before the Requiem’s  Introit. It was rewarding to hear the poignant Ave Verum Corpus lead us into the Domine Jesu Christe.

Above :Baritone soloist David Greco. Image supplied.

A highlight of the additional music in the flow of the Requiem was Jessica Wells’ clever and atmospheric extrapolation of Mozart’s unfinished Amen fragment. This was inserted at the end of the ‘Lacrimosa’, matching Mozart’s choice of wind instruments from the Requiem Mass. The resulting Dolor ultimae melodiae (Grief of the Last Song) was an impressive moment of tribute and tenderness following Mozart’s final utterance before death. The concert was still far from over but this highlight was a beautiful,  memorable moment.

The soloists for this event  (Chloe Lankshear-soprano, Sally-Anne Russell-mezzo, Andrew Goodwin-Tenor and David Greco-baritone) took great care with Mozart’s work in deconstructed mode. Their quartet  blend in the Requiem’s always anticipated ensemble moments, such as the overlapping lines of the ‘Recordare’ and the strident declamations of the ‘Benedictus’, were exemplary.

Above : Tenor soloist Andrew Goodwin. Image supplied.

Elizabeth Scott’s clarity of conducting and  excellent tempo choices for the well-known Mass movements ensured the success of the event. It was a joy to witness her controlling the onstage forces and moudling a secure variety of mood and choral gesture from the score as well as the quality instrument which is the Sydney Philharmonia Choir.

The gifted Requiem soloists were also employed with fine effect in bringing the early Mozart music to fabulous life in the’trope’-like additions. As well as bookending the Requiem with the beauty of brief solo lines, Chloe Lankshear delivered a seamlessly penetrating Laudate Dominum prior to the work beginning.

Above : Mezzo-soprano soloist Sally-Anne Russell. Photo credit: Ali Lamei

Likewise, David Greco reminded us of the firm excellence of Mozart’s early vocal writing in the adaptation of chorus music from music for Gebler’s 1774 play, Thamos, King of Egypt, from Mozart’s K345. The arrangement of  the Lutheran hymn ‘O Gottes Lamm’ juxtaposed with the Mozart’s deliberate Lamb of God section was a nicely contoured offering from Sally-Anne Russell.

At first the idea of transplanting extra music into the fractured flow of a well-known church music work was concerning. It absolutely shone, however, as a concept project. It entertained with a reverent, skilful, scintillating offertorium of new drama, intelligent musicology, creativity and increased  live performance opportunity within the modified performance practice rite .

The elegant concert in the equally elegant and always accommodating Sydney Town Hall space also gave us the gift of much more Mozart, plainchant and Jessica Wells music. This material worked so well live and should be repeated, recorded and enjoyed in aeternum.